


The Two Inevitabilities; Death and History

by JB_Lark



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Blood and Injury, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Kurta!Shalnark, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-12 18:34:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28889928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JB_Lark/pseuds/JB_Lark
Summary: "When he first spotted Hisoka, several emotions went reeling through his mind; disbelief, apprehension, a shot of adrenaline, but not yet fear. Shalnark had never truly been afraid of death; few Meteor City kids were. Death was just an inevitable fate looming over all of them. He figured it would happen when it happened, and that was that. So, when he saw Hisoka, he didn’t feel afraid, but when the hefty weight landed in his hands covered with the distinct texture of silky hair, that was when the fear set in."A canon divergence fic on Shalnark's death (where he doesn't actually die).
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	The Two Inevitabilities; Death and History

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting in my head for a while. I'm running with the same Shalnark is Kurta headcanon that I explored in [this fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28805232), but you don't have to read that for this to make sense. 
> 
> In summary, it's late, I'm tired, have this very angsty fic.

In hindsight, Shalnark thought that he probably should’ve seen something like that coming. Well, maybe not _exactly_ like that. Seeing Hisoka stroll out of a public restroom of all places nonchalantly whistling a cute little tune as if he hadn’t been a horribly disfigured corpse just weeks ago wasn’t something even he could’ve seen coming. But, what he should’ve taken into account was the fact that Hisoka might’ve figured out a way to cheat death. He’d proven incredibly inventive with his strange brand of Hatsu time and time again. Not to mention the sheer amount of power he had. He was indeed a monster among monsters, so if anyone would’ve figured out some way to cheat death, it would’ve been him. 

He thought it was a mop head at first, details obscured by gray, wispy strands, indistinguishable as it sailed through the air. Catching it hadn’t been intentional either. Anything tossed at him by Hisoka was likely to be bad news, but the other man had chucked it directly at his chest in a way that made it hard _not_ to catch. When his hands made contact was when the dread truly sent in. 

When he first spotted Hisoka, several emotions went reeling through his mind; disbelief, apprehension, a shot of adrenaline, but not yet fear. Shalnark had never truly been afraid of death; few Meteor City kids were. Death was just an inevitable fate looming over all of them. He figured it would happen when it happened, and that was that. So, when he saw Hisoka, he didn’t feel afraid, but when the hefty weight landed in his hands covered with the distinct texture of silky hair, that was when the fear set in. 

He knew what it was before he looked, the rigid feeling of bone in one hand and textured wetness in the other that yielded under his fingers like raw meat, but that didn’t stop him from glancing down anyway. A bulbous teal eyed peered up at him between the parted strands. Kortopi’s pupil was glassy, but it hadn’t yet clouded over. If he hadn’t been holding Kortopi’s completely severed head in his hands, he might’ve thought for just a brief moment that the conjurer was still alive. 

By the time he looked up, Hisoka had vanished. He drew in a breath as his fingers clenched around Kortopi’s head. He felt like a harbor seal in open water with the full awareness that a shark was beneath him, unable to do a thing about it. Even if he had his Nen, there was no time to run, no time to make a plan, no time to call for help. A burst of pain exploded through the back of his skull, and his vision whited out as he hit the ground, rolling with Kortopi’s head reflexively clutched against his chest. Before he could try and reorient, a second blow slammed against his side, and he felt his rib cage pop as the bones cracked under Hisoka’s hand. 

As he lay on the ground, sucking in a few twitchy, agonizing breaths, he just hoped death for him would come as quickly as it had for Kortopi. When Hisoka’s nails scraped against his skull as the other man wrenched his head back, he realized that he might not be so lucky. He didn’t peg Hisoka as someone who enjoyed cruelty just for the sake of it. He was a complete sociopath, sure, but brutality alone never seemed to hold his attention. No, he needed something more engaging than one-sided torture with nothing to gain. If there were one thing he and Shalnark agreed on, it would be that they both found broken toys highly unassuming. 

Hisoka’s mouth was moving, but he couldn’t hear anything over the shrill ringing in his ears. The other man frowned slightly at his nonreaction, and Shal giggled at the idea that his temporary deafness had brought Hisoka some dissatisfaction, but the laugh was mute to his ears. Whatever he’d said had likely been some inflammatory question about the other Troupe members, or maybe some threat about what was to come. It didn’t matter because Hisoka would tire of this soon; that’s what he assumed anyway. 

Hands grabbed at his waist and lifted him into the air, fingers digging carelessly into his broken ribs, and Kortopi’s head slipped from his grasp. He tried not to scream, but everything was moving at half speed, lagging a few seconds behind like a computer with a poor connection, and he felt movement in his throat before he could think to stop it. He coughed on the bitter taste of blood and bile that was sitting hot in the back of his throat. The motion sent another burst of agony through his chest as Hisoka carried him indiscriminately over one shoulder like a marionette with all its string cut. 

The first sound he heard as the ringing in his ears faded out was Hisoka whistling that same, stupid little tune he’d been humming when he left the bathroom, Kortopi’s severed head in hand. Shalnark laughed, a painful, broken laugh because it was the only thing he could think to do. Of course, the soundtrack to his imminent demise would be a children’s song whistled nonchalantly from the lips of a murderous clown. He could hear birds tweeting and trilling in the trees above but couldn’t lift his head to see. As his mind wandered, he found himself wondering what Uvogin had heard before he died. Had it been the sounds of battle or some demand from the chain user? Maybe he, too, had bled out somewhere to the sounds of birds chirping overhead. The thought nearly made him laugh again; how Uvo would’ve hated that.

But no, as much as Shalnark wished it were the case, he wasn’t dying yet. The concussive blow he’d received to the back of his head was making it hard to keep track of time, and the pain in his ribs kept pushing him back and forth over a knife blade’s edge of consciousness, but he wasn’t dying. If any of his broken ribs had punctured his lungs, he’d feel it in his breath, and if they’d torn him up inside, he’d have already felt the distinct malaise of blood loss. The only thing he could hope was that there was bleeding in his brain that would finally overwhelm him and ruin whatever sadistic spectacle Hisoka was planning. However, as his periods of consciousness grew longer and longer, that too was seeming unlikely. 

He was mostly alert by the time Hisoka arrived at what he speculated would be his final destination. Even though the building had fallen into disrepair, the eroded towers and shattered rose window quickly identified the building as an old gothic church, not unlike the one they’d used as a home base during their time in Yorknew. Offhandedly he thought that dying in an abandoned church felt like an inappropriately symbolic ending for the kind of life he’d led. 

Trying to figure out what Hisoka had planned was a fool’s errand. There was no reliably peering into the mind of a sociopath. Although, if he knew one thing, it was that whatever Hisoka’s goal was, it probably had very little to do with Shalnark. He was no longer interesting to Hisoka; he was a broken toy, just a prop in whatever this was. He couldn’t decide whether the idea made him want to laugh or cry, but he settled on a chuckle, hoping it would piss Hisoka off more.

Hisoka didn’t react, not in a way Shalnark could see anyway. He simply continued his walk across the ruined church steps, heels clicking over the divots in the eroded granite. The wooden pews were long gone leaving a wide-open space from one wall to the other that allowed air to blow straight through the broken windows on each side, smelling of waterlogged concrete, tilled soil, and cigarette smoke. It reminded him of Meteor City.

Two thick pillars bracketed the altar, still standing due to sheer volume alone. Hisoka deposited him carelessly on the steps, and he bit his tongue to stifle a scream as the back of his skull clacked against the cool granite. He could taste the blood pooling behind his teeth, nauseating and metallic, as Hisoka bound his hands around the pillar with his nen. He laughed again as the other man stepped away.

“Kinda overkill…” he mused, slurring his words, “A lot of work just to kill someone…” The stone was cold against his bare arms, and he couldn’t repress the shiver that traveled down his body in a wave. There was still blood in his mouth, but he didn’t swallow it.

“Oh, not _just_ to kill you,” Hisoka grabbed his jaw in one bony hand and met his eyes with a grin that sent another involuntary shiver down his back. The other man was close enough to his face that he could smell a saccharine chemical tinge on his breath. He could feel as the thin skin behind his jaw broke under Hisoka’s nails, but he didn't flinch. “There’s someone who needs to meet you first.”

His muscles shifted under Hisoka’s hand as he gathered the blood in his mouth and spat hard. The glob was viscous with clotted blood as it spattered across the corner of the other man’s mouth, red-tinged saliva leaving droplets across his cheek in a pattern that reminds Shalnark of stars. He knew it was unlikely he’d be able to provoke Hisoka into granting him an early death; whatever he had planned was paramount to the little twinge satisfaction he might gain from killing the manipulator, if that. 

Shalnark laughed hard, hard enough to send white-hot jolts of pain through his stomach as his cracked ribs shifted, hard enough to close his eyes in mirth as Hisoka dropped his jaw without a word. Maybe he was delirious from having his skull rattled one too many times, but he told himself he was just finding joy in the little things. It was _his_ execution, after all. 

Hisoka tuted at him condescendingly like a parent scolding a child before pulling his hand back and landing a quick punch to his throat. He choked and gasped shallowly, which in turn sent an excruciating wave of pain from his ribs, which caused him to inhale, and so on. The blow wasn’t hard enough to seriously damage his trachea, but the short cycle of pain and airless wheezing forced a sob from his tired body as he finally caught his breath. 

He felt nails digging into the top of his leg through the thin material of his pants, and a renewed wave of dread surged through him as Hisoka’s thumb pushed hard into his inner thigh. Fabric and flesh tore in a single motion as Hisoka ripped his hand back, revealing Shalnark’s spider tattoo now marred with three bleeding welts. Then, Hisoka stood and moved across the altar’s steps a few feet to his side. He checked something on his phone, bored expression illuminated by the digital screen as Shalnark bit his lip hard, trying to stifle the tears that were cutting tracks through the dirt on his cheeks. The manipulator assumed he was checking for updates on whoever it was they were waiting for, and all he could do was hope he hadn’t somehow lured one of the other spiders here. He couldn’t stand the idea of one of them having to watch him die. 

As a figure appeared in the doorway, backlit by the sky, he thought to himself for the second time that he should’ve known. From the moment he’d learned that their infamous chain user was the supposed last surviving member of the Kurta clan, somewhere deep down, he knew their meeting was as inevitable as death itself. He remembered Kurapika too, but not as the nen user that stood fuming before them now, as a snot-nosed little kid, curious to a fault and fond of causing trouble in the way that most kids are. Although, with six years of age difference separating them, he had little beyond that. 

“ _Hisoka,_ ” Kurapika spat, storming across the room in a flurry of blue and white fabric. Shalnark couldn’t decide if he thought wearing traditional garb after all these years was reverent or just toxically sentimental. “What’s the meaning of this?”

“So nice of you to join us,” Hisoka crooned. It’s only when he approached the altar that Kurapika glanced at Shalnark, eyes low and judgmental, flaming at the sight of him even behind dark contacts. The manipulator chuckled dully and looked away. He must’ve been quite the sight, tied to a pillar on the ground, stripped of his nen, face marred by blood and tears. Kurapika’s head titled down in his peripheral vision as the conjurer started at his exposed spider tattoo before turning back to Hisoka with a growl. 

“Why?” he asked simply, his voice demanding. Shalnark heard a high pitched clanking reverberate softly next to his head and realized that he got it wrong. The last thing Uvo heard hadn’t been ultimatums, or combat, or birds. No, it had to have been chains, that cold, metallic sound. The sound that echoed in his ears as Kurapika crossed his arms and regarded Hisoka with a scowl. 

“What do you mean? I’ve done you a favor,” Hisoka answered like it was the easiest thing in the world. “I brought you a spider. And better yet, I think there’s something you’d like to know about this particular spider.”

It was then that Shalnark understood everything. Hisoka was playing puppet master, a role he wasn’t used to being on the other side of. “Explain,” Kurapika demanded again, straight to the point. He could tell the conjurer was trying not to look at him, and the feeling was somewhat mutual. Shal watched as the light caught on specs of dirt as they floated lackadaisically through the air.

“I think that’s a job for our little friend here,” Hisoka replied, a taunting lit to his voice. “I’ll give you a _hint;_ ask him about the Kurta clan.” He was drawing it out, being purposefully vague so he could sit back and watch everything unravel. 

Kurapika’s eyes narrowed, likely skeptical of Hisoka’s motives, as he should be. He seemed smart enough, and Shalnark was sure he could deduce the same thing he had; that Hisoka was playing a game. Footsteps came to a stop across the tile a few feet from his legs, and another command left Kurapika’s mouth as the conjurer finally addressed him, “Look up.”

The manipulator complied. The granite was cool against the back of his skull, almost soothing if the wound on his head hadn’t been so raw. A steel ball swung a few feet on his face from a chain connected to the other man’s ring finger. As light glinted off of the metallic chain links and dissipated in the stale church air, he thought that life had an uncanny habit of coming full circle. He took in a shallow shaky breath and met Kurapika’s eyes with a tired smile. 

“Did you take part in the massacre of the Kurta clan?” the conjurer asked in a voice that was pure, cold fury, “I’ll know if you lie.” 

Shalnark chucked and rolled his head to the side along the frigid stone, “You seem too smart to be playing this game,” he mused.

Kurapika scowled at him but didn’t move, “Answer the question.” He could feel Hisoka’s eyes traveling between them as he watched the exchange with an amused kind of obtrusiveness.

“Of course I did,” he replied simply. Kurapika’s jaw clenched as the chain hung statically in the cool, humid air. A thick drop of blood oozed from the deepest cut on his thigh and trickled across the legs of his spider tattoo. “Who do you think found them?” 

The last part wasn’t entirely true. While his technological know-how and intimate familiarity with the Kurta clan had been useful tools, the Scarlet Eyes had already been on the spiders’ radar by the time he joined the still recently formed troupe. Like everything they did, it took several parts to work towards one whole. The silver ball bearing swayed back and forth gently in the low light. _Oh, it worked sort of like a dowsing pendulum,_ Shalnark gathered. 

“That’s a lie,” the chain user declared, but he lowered his hand anyway, satisfied with the validity of Shalnark’s first answer. He turned to Hisoka with an irritated glare, “What else is there?” he asked in an accusatory tone. 

“Hmm,” Hisoka hummed as he pretended to think, “Maybe… ask him how many survivors there were? Be specific.”

Shalnark cut in with a cynical laugh, “If you keep stalling like this… I’ll die of boredom first.”

Kurapika whipped around to face him, “What are you hiding?” he demanded, lifting his hand to drop the dousing chain again. 

“You don’t want to know, honestly,” Shalnark answered before the steel ball-bearing dropped from the conjurer’s palm. “You’d be better off just killing me now... It’ll be easier, for both of us.” 

“Shut up,” the chain user silenced him as the dousing chain stilled in a perfectly vertical line. The manipulator hoped for a brief second that Kurapika would resist the urge to play Hisoka’s game, but he could see it in the conjurer’s eyes; the hook was set. “How many survivors were there? No,” he paused to rephrase his question, “Did anyone of the Kurta clan besides myself survive the massacre?” 

“What do you think?” the manipulator replied, “Do you think _he’d_ arrange this whole thing just for me to tell you ‘no’?” he giggled and shifted his stiff shoulders against the unyielding granite. “I thought you’d be smarter than that…” 

Kurapika fumed and flicked the chain back to his hand. He turned from the spider, blue tunic flaring around his body, and took a few steps away. In that same second, he wheeled back around and stood close enough that Shalnark had to crane his eyes up to look at the chain user. _“Who?”_ he spat.

The manipulator could feel Hisoka’s eyes trained on the side of his head as he answered. “No one important.” 

He’d been five when his mother returned to the Kurta clan, tail between her legs after an unsuccessful attempt at living free from the isolation of the tribe. She could’ve made it too; it wasn’t _entirely_ unheard of, but getting knocked up hadn’t been in the plan. So, she came scurrying back with a half-Kurta brat, neither truly here nor there. Kurapika had been no more than six, maybe seven, when Shalnark ran away from the clan and returned to Meteor City. It was apparent that the chain user had no clear memories of him. 

His head whipped to the side as the back of Kurapika’s hand collided with his cheek. Compared to Hisoka’s earlier treatment, it hardly stung. _“Tell me who,”_ he repeated, his voice nearly a growl in the manipulator’s ear.

Shal ran his tongue along the inside of his cheek; it tasted like blood, but there were no cuts. “You don’t remember him,” he replied, “You really don’t,” he added on with a light chuckle, tilting his head away from Kurapika’s gaze. It felt like an inside joke. 

He heard the rattling of chains before Hisoka’s voice cut in beside him, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you. He’ll likely just kill himself.” The silver dagger hanging from the conjurer’s hand swung a few feet from his face in the low light. He found himself wondering if that was the same chain that had killed Uvo and Paku. That would likely be the same weapon that would take his life, too, he realized. He couldn’t decide if the thought was upsetting or strangely comforting, to be killed by the same chain. 

Kurapika turned his fury to Hisoka, “How long have you known about this?” 

“I recently... acquired the information,” the other man vaguely explained, sounding wholly unbothered by the chain user’s threatening aura. “So, of course, I just _had_ to arrange a meeting.” 

“What information _specifically_?” Kurapika continued to question Hisoka. The manipulator let out a shallow sigh that burned and rattled against his cracked ribs. At least Kurapika was finally directing his anger at the right person, not to say that he had no reason to be furious with Shalnark, but he’d have to be blind to miss Hisoka’s role in this set-up. 

“That there may have been a certain traitor among the late Kurta clan, is all,” Hisoka answered with a misplaced shrug, “And a spider no less.” he tutted patronizingly, glancing towards the manipulator. 

Shalnark could almost see the information process on the chain user’s face, from outrage to confusion, disbelief, and then back to anger. “That’s impossible,” he replied. 

It was such a predictable response that the manipulator nearly laughed. The only real question left for Shalnark was how long he wanted to draw this out now that Hisoka had stopped playing vague instigator and showed his hand. The moment Hisoka had struck him down, that was when he identified his inevitable rendezvous with death. Everything after that had just been his unwilling role in a plot that didn’t truly concern him, just Hisoka’s passing desire to make an incredible mess. No, at that point, he’d preferred to end this quickly.

“You were such a cute kid,” he mused, meeting Kurapika’s furious gaze, “Kind of a pain, though. Always too curious. What was your little friend’s name? Pairo, right?” 

“No, it’s not possible,” the conjurer shook his head. 

“Use your chain then, the dousing one,” he offered, “I’m not lying.” Kurapika shook his head again in disbelief. 

“No, none of them… no one from that clan would do something like that,” he affirmed, trying to reassure himself just as much as anyone else in the room.

Shalnark just laughed. “Do you really think everyone there was perfect? That none of them were capable of doing awful things?”

“Nothing like what you did!” he snapped back before exhaling a short angry breath and raising his hand to drop the chain from his ring finger. “...are you from the Kurta clan?” he finally asked, tensing like it physically pained him to say. 

_“Yes,”_ the manipulator replied, “My mother was full Kurta. She raised me with the clan in Lukso. Until I ran away, that is.” 

The chain hung static and unmoving, as damning as the confession itself. Even from there, Shalnark could see Kurapika’s hand begin to shake, but the chain stood as still as the granite pillar behind his back. “How could… why don’t I remember you?” The conjurer asked in an accusatory tone, one final grasp for denial. 

“I’m not sure if that’s a question _I_ can answer,” Shalnark said, “Maybe I can jog your memory? My mother’s name was Kichalna. She liked gossiping with the other moms and was a famously awful cook. I wore green because that was her favorite color…” he saw Kurapika’s scowl drop as he turned memories over in his head. 

“ _What if we speak Kurta?”_ the manipulator switched languages without pausing, _“I was the only half-blood in the clan. You must remember.”_ The chain user’s eyes gradually widened as he spoke, stuck somewhere between shock and horror. “Ah, now you remember,” Shal chuckled cynically, dragging his feet up along the concrete until the cuts on his leg bowed open. 

Hisoka whistled short and low. “So it _is_ true,” he mused, “How truly shocking. What will you do now, Kurapika?” 

“I don’t…” the conjurer placed a hand over his face. His chains rattled together as his second hand shook in a tight fist at his side. “How could you do that to your own people?!” He shouted, hand dropping from his face. When he’d first entered the room, his anger had been a cold, ruthless thing, but the atmosphere had changed. He was a forest fire now, fury burning uncontrolled. 

“They weren’t _my people_ ,” Shal mocked, something between a giggle and a sneer. “You didn’t even remember who I was until I said _‘half-blood.’”_ Before the chain user could respond, he added in a more even tone, “That aside, honestly, it wasn’t personal.” 

Kurapika looked like he wanted to shout something in response, but before he could, Hisoka cut in again, “So, will you kill him?” He questioned, finally standing from the altar steps, “Then you’ll truly be the last surviving member of the Kurta clan, by your own hand no less.” 

And there was the ultimatum, Shalnark thought, the grand finale to this whole spectacle, the sole reason he’d been kept alive until now. Hisoka wanted to see what Kurapika would do. He wanted to watch as the chain user learned that there was another survivor, only to discover that he was one of the people responsible for the massacre in the first place. The spider tattoo lay exposed on his thigh, an unavoidable reminder of his affiliation. 

The conjurer barked out a curse and paced a few steps to the side and back. Hisoka’s eyes tracked his movements like a predator. Kurapika grappled with the dilemma, hints of emotion slipping on and off of his face. As Shalnark watched passively, he found that, even in these likely final moments of his life, his mind began to wander. Uvogin had died in battle with the chain user before him, and Pakunoda had made a knowing choice that resulted in the judgment chain crushing her heart. They’d had power over their deaths, at least, that’s what he told himself. But he was about to die to the same man like a broken toy, as a prop in a game orchestrated by a conniving sociopath. The thought left a bitter taste in his mouth. 

Kurapika’s expression cemented into a scowl, and he stopped a few feet from Shalnark, feet planted shoulder-width apart, hand raised. His judgment chain chimed metallically as the silver dagger dropped from his palm, but before he could move the Hisoka spoke, “I told you if you use that on him, he’ll just use it to kill himself. Is that your intention?” 

The conjurer glanced at Hisoka with a scowl and then looked down to Shalnark’s passive expression before clenching his fist and resending the judgment chain with a muttered curse. There was a persistent thought buzzing through Shal’s head, and he swallowed once, feeling the nickel-like taste of blood hot on his tongue, before opening his mouth, “Hey, can I ask you a question… about Uvogin?” 

Contact covered dark eyes met his green ones as Kurapika proceed the request. Before he could answer with an affirmative or a negative, Shalnark asked, “When you fought was it… was it a fair fight?” he struggled to find the words and schooled his expression, “Did he go down fighting?” 

“It was a fair fight,” the conjurer answered flatly, but Shal could see an unreadable expression behind his eyes. “He died when he refused to give up information about the spiders, and the judgment chain pierced his heart.” 

“Oh,” the manipulator replied numbly. He’d painted a picture in his head of Uvo going down swinging, fighting to his very last breath, and it somehow hurt more to know that he died protecting them. It was as if that were the final straw; from Kortopi’s untimely demise, to the pain in his head, to being interrogated by Uvo and Paku’s killer, something cracked inside of him, something more important than just ribs. He felt the dampness of tears gathering in his lash line before they spilled hotly down his cheeks. 

As Kurapika stared down at him, same tense, unreadable expression, he felt a sour feeling bloom in his chest. Pathetic, he felt utterly and wholly pathetic. Hisoka had vanished from his peripheral vision, but the thought that he was somewhere in the room witnessing this only made the tears come faster. How dare he break down like this when he’d seen Pakunoda face the same fate with an unwavering hand? He laughed bitterly through the tears at his own traitorous weakness. New pain jostled through his body with each inhale, and he dropped his head to his chest with a wince as chains rattled somewhere above his head. He took in a few more painful shuttering breaths and closed his eyes. Finally, this was it. 

But no blow came. There was no piercing sensation, no cool metal against his skin, nothing. He held his head still and waited a few moments longer until the tears stopped flowing down his cheeks and his chest stopped shuddering. The sound of light footsteps and rustling fabric cut through the silence as it echoed off of the churches’ eroded walls. He spared a glance up as the footsteps grew softer, and by the time he looked up, the chain user was nothing more than a silhouette in the doorway, backlit by the sky. 

Hisoka stepped back into his field of vision with his arms crossed, tapping a single bony finger on the skin of his arm. “Hmm, interesting,” he mused, before he too turned towards the exit, offering no further comment. Shalnark watched wide-eyed as Hisoka’s strolled down the dusty aisle as casually as ever. The other man stopped in the doorway and waved a hand nonchalantly behind his back. The manipulator’s hands dropped to the cool granite steps as Hisoka’s nen dissolved, and he too vanished from the building.

Shalnark felt like he was in shock as he leaned forward towards the floor and clutched a hand over his broken ribs. It felt like when Hisoka had first concussed him; everything was moving at half speed, lagging a few seconds behind like a computer with a poor connection. He stood slowly, forcing his feet to move down the aisle. Part of his mind was reeling, trying to figure out what to do next. The list forming in his head was long; find out where he was, get back to where Hisoka had jumped him so he could recover Kortopi’s body as well as his phone, contact the spiders, get his nen back from danchou, on and on the list went. But a more significant part of him felt numb as if he’d had his inside’s scooped out and put back all wrong. 

He trudged back the way he thought they’d come and allowed his body to move on its own, accomplish the tasks he’d set out before himself, and worry about the rest later. Maybe death hadn’t come for him yet. But this, somehow, felt worse. 


End file.
